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NEW POEM BY U.S. DHUGA

Eyewear is always pleased to feature new poems by poets we admire, and one of these is U.S. Dhuga. Unfortunately, the poem is occasioned by something which we all hope does not prove sinister.U. S. Dhuga is the author of Choral Identity and the
Chorus of Elders in Greek Tragedy, published through Harvard University's
Center for Hellenic Studies in the series "Greek Studies:
Interdisciplinary Approaches" (Lexington Books, 2011). Founder, publisher,
and managing editor of The Battersea Review, Dhuga earned his PhD in
Classics at Columbia University. He lives in Toronto.

Say Banal Again, with
Feeling

It’s
pronounced baNAWL not BAYnal, my love—
this bothers me now, more than before, because
now I’ve got that disease

where you hold your hip and lurch
forward: the all-male (fuck, all-male...) search-
crew sent running through recesses of the ‘couch’

to find—so promptly and sincerely—my pills
comes back with but fistfuls of Benadryl
(non-drowsy) and assures me the refill

of hydromorphone will arrive next week.
They look at me with eyes far more pathetic,
far more far off, than mine. They speak

in mock-hush tones more hushed than mine. It could
happen anywhere, my getting over cold,
anywhere but in this cancer ward.